Wise Words from an Editor

Another press release from idfa (see below) refers to the now finished Summer School, where projects at different levels are being tutored. Some are still on paper, some are bringing rough cuts to experienced editors. One of them was ”Ollie Huddleston, editor for such documentary luminaries as Kim Longinotto and Sean McAllister, tutoring two of the editing projects, starting out with a rough cut and refining things along the six-day workshop.

“Maybe it’s comparable to what a grandfather feels”, he laughs. “Rather than getting my hands dirty and raising the child, I can give it back to them and say: ‘Fix it!’ It’s a kind of balancing act: you give them some ideas and then they run with it. Sometimes they’ve already spent two or three years working on the film, so I can’t just jump in with hobnail boots and say: ‘Do this, do that’. I say what I think, but of course it’s up to them, it’s their film.”, and he adds “If you think too much about what other people think, you can get really lost”.

Wise words and I have no problems in identifying with the grandfather comparison and the privilege it is to be invited to look at rough cuts. Sometimes you are able to help, sometimes the chemistry between you and the filmmaker is not good enough or you don’t speak the same language, communication is not easy.

Photo: Group photo of IDFA Summer School 2014 participants.

http://www.idfa.nl/industry/latest-news/summer-schools-out.aspx

IDFA Bertha Fund selects 19 Projects

Copy-Paste quotes of a press release of today from idfa and its IDFA Bertha Fund, whose action one can only applaud:

The IDFA Bertha Fund has concluded the May selection round of 2014. Nineteen documentary projects from countries like Nicaragua, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Afghanistan and South-Sudan will be supported by the fund.

For the May selection round of 2014, the fund considered around 267 projects from more than 65 different countries. In total, an amount of €262,850 was granted to 19 projects. The committee selected 5 projects for project development and 14 projects for production and post-production…

The selection includes stories from unseen parts of the world, such as Dust (photo), which visually foregrounds the dust created by mining equipment exploiting the once-verdant grasslands of Inner Mongolia, and The Boxing Women of Kivu, a profound portrait of a female police officer in the DRC giving self defense lessons to rape victims…

Read more on:

http://www.idfa.nl/industry/latest-news/idfa-bertha-fund-selects-19-new-projects.aspx

AfriDocs

So many documentary films have been shot in Africa, but very few have been seen by African audiences. This heralds a new era of distribution for the continent… words by Don Edkins, who is the Executive producer of AfriDocs and the man behind Steps for the Future, Why Democracy, Why Poverty, and now also AfriDocs, helped as before by Finnish Iikka Vehkalahti from YLE.

AfriDocs is the name of a broadcast initiative that has a focus on “The best documentaries made in Africa and the first documentary strand across Sub-Saharan Africa… real stories weekly. Primetime.” Through the channels DStv ED (channel190)
 and GOtv (channel 65). In this way AfriDocs covers 49 African countries by satellite and 100 cities terrestrially across 8 countries across Africa.

This month includes a full week of African documentary films to be broadcast across Sub-Sahara to coincide with the Durban International Film Festival, the largest film festival in South Africa that takes place from July 17th – 27th.

There will be documentary films from thirteen countries in Africa – D.R.C., Kenya, Liberia, Mali, Mozambique, Niger, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia. Films by African filmmakers Idrissa Guiro, Sani Elhadj, Licinio Azevedo, Rehad Desai, Judy Kibinge, Andrey Samoute Diarra, Osvalde Lewat, together with filmmakers Mika Karismäki, Thierry Michel, Roger Ross Williams, Abby Ginsberg and Göran Olsson amongst others, will be seen for the first time by a wide audience through this collaboration…

AfriDocs is an initiative of the multi-awarded South African documentary production and distribution company, Steps, in partnership with the Bertha Foundation. Impressive it is!

http://www.steps.co.za/afridocs/tv-schedule/

https://www.facebook.com/AfriDocs

http://www.steps.co.za/afridocs/film-week/

Brave New Culture

In the post about the Moving Docs project that will take off next year, supported by Creative Europe, I wrote “”Brave New Culture” from Cyprus is also on board. Regret to say that I have never heard about it before…”

Rea Apostolides, who is the person behind ”Moving Docs”, wrote to me today to help me out of my ignorance:

“Brave New Culture is the company run by Yiangos Hadjiyiannis,who is the director of the http://www.filmfestival.com.cy/  lemessos international Documentary Festival. He is really lovely and his festival is fabulous (and takes place by the sea)”

Aha, I thought, the festival in Cyprus that I have heard so much good about both in terms of selection and atmosphere and quality. Last year it had producer Signe Byrge talk about “The Act of Killing”, Ove Rishøj from EDN had a focus on opening sequences and Tinatin Gurchiani talked about succesful Georgian documentary “The Machine Which makes Everything Disappear”. More about the festival from the website:

The ‘Lemesos International Documentary Film Festival’ is organized every August by the non-profit organization Brave New Culture & the Cyprus Bradcasting Corporation and it is a festival dedicated in presenting contemporary creative documentaries in Cyprus. In addition, through the organization of workshops and lectures, it offers the possibility to local professional directors and producers to get acquainted with the latest trends and tendencies in the documentary genre and to get informed about the prospects of fund raising and promoting their own projects in the broader European spectrum. Our intention is to search and invite films that are interesting in cinematographic terms but are also innovative and eye-opening in their sociopolitical approach. The main objective of our organization is to establish “Lemesos International Documentary Festival’ as a quality documentary festival which encourages the public to experience during eight summer nights a creative, timely and rich experience, full of stories and images characteristic of our times and which derive from our surrounding civilizations and cultures.

This year the festival runs from August 1-8.

Audience Development

… is the name of a new support scheme from EU’s Creative Europe – Media Programme. Its task is

”To stimulate interest in, and improve access to European audio-visual works, in particular through promotion, events, film literacy and festivals.

Film literacy projects: to provide mechanisms for better cooperation between film literacy initiatives in Europe to improve the efficiency and European dimension of these initiatives.

Audience development projects: events focusing on the programming of important and successful non-national European films on various distribution platforms and promotional activities building on the marketing on promotion results of important festivals and awards.”

The first results – money-wise a bit more than 6 mio. € – of a call that was announced at the end of March – have been published and great to see a wide spread of countries being succesful with their applications, and not a centralising tendency one could fear after the launch of Creative Europe. OK, France and UK are there as benificiaries but Germany not, Italy is there, Romania, Estonia and Czech Republic as well, the latter with support to Doc Alliance Academy and to Institute of Documentary Film with a programme called KineDok.

I am – at the moment – not able to go closer to all 16 to see how many are documentary projects, but I have been given access to EDN’s ”Moving Docs”, see below post.

Photo of a film mentioned in the ”Moving Docs” application, see below: ”Velvet Terrorists”.

https://eacea.ec.europa.eu/creative-europe/actions/media/audience-development_en

Audience Development: Moving Docs

With EDN (European Documentary Network) as the natural umbrella organisation for a project concepted and developed by Rea Apostolides, strong and visionary Greek producer and member of EDN’s Executive Committee, the ”Moving Docs” project was, by Creative Europe, granted 150.000€, 81% of the budget applied for – for a true international initiative with a vision to reach an audience outside the traditional festival circles, if I get it right.

I have been granted access to look a bit more into the application that was succesful.

What was impressive from a first glance is the group of players in ”Moving Docs”, they are called partner organisations: Planeta in Spain, that stands behind the unique ”Documentary of the Month”, Apordoc in Portugal, Doc/IT from Italy, SDI (Scottish Documentary Institute), Against Gravity Warsaw Poland, Doc Lounge Sweden, all known as strong and experienced promoters of European documentary life, whereas Rea Apostolides as manager of the project contributes with her company Anemon as does EDN headed by Paul Pauwels. ”Brave New Culture” from Cyprus is also on board. Regret to say thatI have never heard about it before.

The action starts February 2015, runs the rest of the year and includes cinema screenings, community screenings, festival screenings, vod screenings and educational activities…. you name it, they got it!

Creative Europe asks in the application for titles of films and a long list of potential highlights is mentioned. Among them ”Master of the Universe” (photo).

Some quotes from the 72 page big application: The objective of Moving Docs is to engage urban and rural audiences across Europe through regular and simultaneous screenings of the best European and international documentary films…structured around ”European Screening Days”, five unique media moments that connect European audiences… target groups are 20-40 years… (focus on) issue-based films… the action will use different strategies to target four different audience catagories: rural, urban, frequent and first-time doc viewers…

Much more will come about ”Moving Docs” from the organisers – here is only to be said: Well done, good luck – filmkommentaren.dk will follow your work.

Daniel Dencik: Tal R: The Virgin /2

Tal R får med det samme ordet, og han taler lavmælt og intenst filmen igennem. Denne gennemløbende fortælling rammer mig, overbeviser mig, besejrer mig med sin alvor. Tal R hedder han, og jeg får efterhånden forklaringen på fornavnet. Det er egentlig et pigenavn, fortæller hans forældre, da det bliver deres tur til at fortælle noget. Bogstavet R står for efternavnet, og i listen over filmens medvirkende, ser jeg, at efternavnet må være Rosenzweig. Flere af de medvirkende vidner hedder Rosenzweig. Det er familien, hustruen, forældrene, børnene. Så er der derudover venner og kolleger til at tegne det portræt af en maler, som stemmen har åbnet for.

Skønhed er det vigtigste. Det er det første Tal R fortæller. Ordet diskuteres ikke, det skal ikke forstås dybsindigt, det skal ikke fortolkes, det står for sit almindelige pålydende. Og det har Martin Munch, fotografen taget til sig i sit arbejde med optagelserne af den række stiliserede scener, som filmen består af. Tableauer hedder de i Denciks synopsis. Stiliseringen er ikke en manér, en påtagethed. Den er en naturlighed, et alvorligt og konsekvent valg. Sådan skal filmen være, og sådan er de medvirkende instrueret i en iscenesættelse, som omfatter fotografering, klip, set design, alt, så det er gennemført cinematografi, som lever opmærksom i sin neddæmpethed.

Skønheden er oppe mod selve ødelæggelsen, truslen om holocaust hviler som en tyngde over malerens tænkning, over hans arbejde. Krigens og mishandlingens rædsel har fulgt ham i drøm og forestilling siden barndommen. Det bekræfter forældrene. Og det skildres i filmen som et livsvilkår, det gives ikke hen til en psykologisk eller historisk eller biografisk forklaring. Således er Denciks film også et usædvanligt værk.

Danmark, 2014, 30 min. Filmen sælges på dvd (with English subtitles) i Tiger butikkerne overalt og kan streames VOD: http://danishdox.com/tal-r-the-virgin

Anmeldelser: Politiken (Dorte Hygum Sørensen) Ekko (Henrik Østergaard) FilmGuide (Nanna Frank Rasmussen)

Herz Frank 1926 – 2013/ 3

I like this tradition so much – the plaques that are put on the walls of the houses, where great artists have been living and working. To honour them and remember. They do so a lot in the Baltic countries and it is only just that a plaque of Herz Frank was unveiled some days ago in Riga at Lacplesa Street 29. In the presence of his two daughters and friends.

Guntis Trekteris, who produced ”Flashback” and is now finishing ”Edge of Fear” together with Frank’s co-director, sent me the photo. If you can not read the text, which is in Latvian and English, it goes like this:

”Prominent Latvian documentary film maker HERZ FRANK 1926-2013 lived and worked here from 1960 to 1993”.

Moscow International Film Festival 2014

A triumph for the young Polish director Jan Matuszynski in Moscow yesterday where the Best Documentary Award was announced, given to him for his ”Deep Love”. I have seen this film twice before, read what I wrote from the American Documentary Film festival: 

”I was asked to introduce the Polish film ”Deep Love” by young Jan Matuszynski, who was present and received quite an applause for his cinematically brilliant interpretation of the love relationship between Janusz, who got paralyzed when diving and Joanna, his girl friend, who worries as he insists to continue diving and break the record by going down to 100 meters, even if his medical status, as the doctors tell him, does not allow him to do so.

This is what I wrote back in November when I saw the film at DOKLeipzig: ”Deep Love” is a multi-layered story. It is about a man, whose life first of all consists of a passion for diving, a passion that had severe consequences for him when his head hit a rock, making him a handicapped man, who understands what the people near him says to him but can not talk himself and has a paralysed arm and leg. Nevertheless, he wants to get into the sea again and go deeper, encouraged by his close friend and co-diver, yet discouraged by his girl friend, who is afraid of what could happen to him if he realises his wish to go 100 meter down. Here lies the core of the film, the relationship between them, the love story with her in the centre, with her constant care and anxiety. A very strong story but for my taste a bit too dramatic and disturbingly set up with music and sound… on the big screen in Palm Springs, my objections were no longer there, I have to say. Reminding me of how important the watching situation is for your evaluation of a film.”

EDN Launches Co-Production Guide

Short enough for an overview – detailed enough for your co-production strategy… this is the one-liner from EDN about the new baby of the organisation: A Co-Production Guide which is available online for the members of an “… organisation for professionals working with documentary film and television… with about 1000 members from more than 60 countries…” I am sure that this excellent help for documentarians, who work internationally, will give EDN even more members.

As a member, I have checked the information given from several countries and it looks perfect even if everyone knows that “perfect” does not exist, when you are dealing with such a huge collection of facts to be conveyed. I notice that there has been two readers/collectors from every country, good idea, as it is to have the possibility for readers/users to come up with their co-production experiences online. Interactivity, as it should be with a member’s organisazation like EDN. In other words, here is a tool you can’t afford to miss. Become a member of EDN … I stop my promotion, short quote from the press release sent out in connection with the Sunny Side of the Doc:

“EDN is launching The EDN Co-Production Guide, a new tool for international financing of documentaries. The online guide provides details on coproduction opportunities across Europe. All information is edited by EDN, provided by established producers and based on concrete co-production experiences. EDN has commissioned experienced producers in 30 European countries to provide information about the co-production possibilities in their country. The information is now brought together in an easy-to-use format making it possible to use the information in the everyday reality of a production company.

The guide includes:

• Profiles of co-production funds in 30 countries

• Guidelines for funding of co-productions in each country

• Titles of co-produced projects and production companies

• Contact info, relevant links and organizations

• A forum for EDN members to share co-production experiences

www.edn.dk